


Knock at the Door

by werpiper



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Durin's Day, Gen, Prophecy, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The secret door, brought to you by the birds who made it all happen.  Or, it is damn hard for Eru's good creatures to help people sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock at the Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [margaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/margaret/gifts).



As the song went, the Door had been opened by a Man of Dale. Mined from the inside, where he'd been too long from sunlight and birdsong, which Men crave and Dwarves do not. For generations it was always open, and birds even flew inside, to escape the rain or explore the deep tunnels and soar through the tremendous caverns. Dwarves looked up shocked to hear their songs; any Men who heard would always smile.

Most of the birds flew away from Smaug's first flames, but three thrushes stayed behind as the door was sealed by Dwarves, with great magic and in great terror. The thrushes tried to give advice, most of which went unheard, as the Dwarves did not understand it. But there was a Dale-woman among them, a baker, whom the thrushes knew as she had often tempted them with sultanas. They took counsel with her, and she convinced the Dwarves that they should make a secret key-hole and a key, and a thrush would reveal it should the rightful heir to their hoard someday return.

This calmed the Dwarf-king, who seemed to the thrushes half-mad with protecting his nest and his hoard. They left, and the birds returned. The little ledge where the door had been was a wonderful place for snails, and thrushes came there often, to eat and reminisce. It was a good many years later before any Dwarves returned to the mountain.

A young raven spotted them near Ravenhill, and immediately told old Roac, who still kept a few shiny treasures from the old dwellers in the mountain. Roac muttered and wondered, and sent his wife, who was a little younger, to investigate. She flew over them, and did not like the way the smallest one returned her gaze and glanced towards the little stones on the ground. So she did not stop to speak with them, but returned to the old outpost where they kept their nest. "It's Dwarves for sure," she said, "shorter than Men, and the littlest one looks mean."

Word spread quickly among the ravens, and then took off through everyone, Lake-ducks and sparrows and high-flying hawks alike. At night, a tawny owl watched and listened as the Company pored over their map. "They're looking for a door," she told her friends, breathlessly, in the dawn. "They want to get inside. With the dragon!"

One of the three thrushes who had advised at the closing of the Door still lived. A proud bird with feathers nearly black over her back, she began to follow the Company, though mostly at a distance; the raven had been quite right about the smallest one and his quick hand for a stone. She recognized Thorin; he resembled his grandfather more than a little, and as a youngster had been quite as fond of the baker's scones as the bird was herself. She called to him gladly, and he failed to notice. She tried to guide them, perching just out of range and singing with all her heart, and every member of the Company ignored her.

"What can be the matter?" she asked the younger thrushes, who ruffled their breast-feathers and wondered. "It was to be written on the map," she said, as if they had not all heard the tale a hundred times. "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks. Why aren't they looking for us, for me?"

Thus unguided, even with their map, it took the party several days to find the place where the Door had been. They made their stolid, ground-bound way up the crumbled carven steps and along the broken thread of path. There they camped, and the thrush stayed near them, eating the great choice snails that had bred there all her long life. She waited for the sun and the moon to come together as they should, and at the appointed time, she flew to the wall and knocked aside the cunningly-worked chip of stone that had protected the keyhole for so long.

Nobody noticed.

The thrush was furious. "YOU RIDICULOUS FLIGHTLESS BIPEDS, LOOK OVER HERE!" She bashed the stone with her beak, right over the keyhole. She did it again. The Dwarves were muttering, the light was fading. She snatched up the biggest, hardest-shelled snail she could find, jumped up and down with it while flapping her wings, and bashed it as hard as she could against the keyhole.

At last the littlest one looked in the right spot, and cried out, "Thorin -- the key! The key!" A stray moonbeam caught on the worked metal and it gleamed. And finally, finally, the thrush sighed out a song of exasperated relief.

**Author's Note:**

> Book canon mainly. I don't think the moon-runes were a prophecy at all, merely instructions.


End file.
